Originally entitled "The Cynic's Word Book", this justly infamous volume was re-titled "The Devil's Dictionary" in 1911 and addressed to 'enlightened souls who prefer dry wines to sweet, sense to sentiment, wit to humour, and clean English to slang. Bierce's ironic definitions ring as true today as when they were first coined.. For more options...

"The Penguin Writers' Guides" series provides authoritative, succinct and easy-to-follow guidance on specific aspects of written English. Whether you need to brush up your skills or get to grips with something for the first time, these invaluable Guides will help you find the best way to get your message across clearly and effectively. For more options...

"When are the 1970s going to begin?" ran the joke during the Presidential campaign of 1976. With his own patented combination of serious journalism and dazzling comedy, Tom Wolfe met the question head-on in these rollicking essays -- and even provided the 1970s with its name: "The Me Decade." . For more options...

The Penguin Writers' Guides series provides authoritative, succinct and easy-to-follow guidance on specific aspects of written English. Whether you need to brush up your skills or get to grips with something for the first time, these invaluable Guides will help you find the best way to get your message across clearly and effectively. For more options...

Mervyn Peake has been acclaimed as an author of fantasy and as an illustrator, but as yet has received little attention from literary critic. This book is the first to analyse all of Peake's works of fiction, including his two picture story books and novellas as well as the Gormenghast series and Mr Pye. For more options...

This is a major new edition of the "Little Oxford Thesaurus", offering the most accurate and up-to-date coverage of essential vocabulary for all your writing needs. It provides 140,000 alternative and opposite words, and gives the closest and most frequently used synonyms first, making the thesaurus quick and easy to use. For more options...

Collection of literary lectures by E.M. Forster, published in 1927. For more options...

At the forefront of the field of linguistics, David Crystal has contributed significantly to its development, pioneering many new areas from clinical to internet linguistics. Now, after a long and hugely successful career, David offers us a special look behind the curtains at the adventures, challenges and pitfalls of his life in linguistics. For more options...

In this book you'll find easy to understand pronunciations and foreign spellings, common colloquial expressions, and a brief history of each language and its development, as well as some interesting language facts.. For more options...

From empty cliche to meaningless jargon, dangling participle to sentences without verbs, the English language is reeling. It is under attack from all sides. For more options...

David Crystal, one of the world's leading commentators on language, tackles the proverbs of the world. A new anthology of global proverbs has not been compiled for over 70 years. For more options...

"Other Colours" is a collection of immediate relevance and timeless value, ranging from lyrical autobiography to criticism of literature and culture, from humour to political analysis, from delicate evocations of his friendship with his daughter Ruya to provocative discussions of Eastern and Western art. It also covers Pamuk's recent, high profile, court case. For more options...

First and foremost an outcry against injustice and inhumanity, "Unto this Last" is also a closely argued assault on the science of political economy, which dominated the Victorian period. Ruskin was a profoundly conservative man who looked back to the Middle Ages as a Utopia, yet his ideas had a considerable influence on the British socialist movement. For more options...

This volume gathers together for the first time in book form twenty-nine pieces on books, writing, photography and the 1995 Rugby World Cup in South Africa. Stranger Shores opens with 'What is a classic?' in which Coetzee explores the answer to his own question "What does it mean in living terms to say that the classic is what survives?' - by way of T. For more options...

For more than a quarter of a century, Pat Schneider has helped writers find and liberate their true voices. She has taught all kinds - the award winning, the struggling, and those who have been silenced by poverty and hardship. For more options...

Sontag wrote "Illness as Metaphor" in 1978, while suffering from breast cancer herself. In her study, she reveals that the metaphors and myths surrounding certain illnesses, especially cancer, add greatly to the suffering of the patients and often inhibit them from seeking proper treatment. For more options...